Earthly Matters

Silence. The end of everything. The world was gone. There was nothing left.

This is the story of how the world ended.

It was a dreary winter night, and the stars were glittering in the sky, invisible to the eyes of the humans down below, due to the thick layer of grey clouds obscuring the view.

In the world of Darren Sinclair, there was nothing but boredom, and so he wandered out into the night.

He headed out into the town, and found clubs and pubs and things. People were celebrating, though he didn't know why. To him tonight was like any other, but when he asked why, people simply said "Ask Simon."

Who was Simon? And why were all these people telling him to ask this mysterious Simon? He had no idea, until he ran into the enigmatic person behind the name.

"Ahhh, you must be wondering why all the celebrations." Said the mystery man when Darren asked him if he knew where he could find Simon, who apparently had knowledge no one else did.

"Yeah, what's with the partying?"

"Well you see, it's Earth's birthday." Simon told the young, but not stupid, Darren.

"You can't know that. No one knows that. The Earth is millions of years old, you can't pinpoint it to a single day."

"Ah, but I can. I'm not you, Darren Sinclair. I'm from a distant world, a world of dreams and nightmares. A world where I know almost everything."

"Almost?" Darren found himself asking, despite his instinct to flee from the alien man.

"Yes. I never know what is going to happen in the next moment. I see the past, but not the future." Simon told him.

"Odd ability..." Darren commented.

"What I do know, however, is if you don't start celebrating the Earth's birthday, she'll be very unhappy with you." said Simon, making no sense at all to the mind of the young man before him.

"But how can 'she' be unhappy with me? The Earth is a planet, a huge lump of celestial rock, it's not alive."

As Darren said those words, somehow he knew he shouldn't have, and his instinct was right. The ground started grumbling, the Earth started shaking, and the buildings nearby began crumbling. An earthquake...

Darren turned to ask Simon what was going on, but he'd disappeared, obviously too scared to face the wrath of the Earth, which just happened to be throwing a tantrum under the feet of it's inhabitants.

Suddenly, bits of Earth started flying through the atmosphere, being ejected by the core beneath. It was like watching a meteor shower hitting Earth, but in reverse. Great lumps of rock were flying out in all directions, and the Earth began to destabilise. The atmosphere started to become compromised, and Darren started choking.

The Earth finally collapsed, and Darren was trapped in the expanse that was space, and, with the lack of Earth's gravity, only one thing could hold him now. He began floating towards the bright shiny thing in the sky, that wasn't in the sky anymore. The lack of oxygen stopped his cognitive function, he didn't have the mental faculty to wonder why he wasn't dead yet, and where the Earth had gone, why it had self-destructed...

With a jolt, and a start, and burning bright light of the curtains being opened, he woke up to a woman standing before him. "Interesting dream?" she asked.


570 words.